Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!usc!ucsd!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!jalapeno.UUCP!doc
From: doc@jalapeno.UUCP (Tom Dockery)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re:  News=>X11/News
Message-ID: <8910171629.AA05042@jalapeno.mfti>
Date: 18 Oct 89 06:17:30 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 57


Dan Williams writes:
>
>
>	I will soon be taking a NeWS application built a year ago and
>trying to port it into X11/NeWS.  We don't have the X11/NeWS product in
>house yet and I was wondering about experiences that others have had with
>this.  How much has NeWS changed and what is the quickest way to get our
>application up?
>
>
We have done that very thing, and found not *too* many problems.  Because
X/NeWS still includes the lite package, as well as the new tNt package,
existing NeWS apps may run with no problem.  Then again, because there
are some differences in the PostScript implementation (especially dealing
with paths), and some magic dictionaries have changed, and the fonts are
different, and so on, the older stuff may break, render oddly, or behave
somewhat weirdly.

We have done that very thing, and found not *too* many problems.  Because
X/NeWS still includes the lite package, as well as the new tNt package,
existing NeWS apps may run with no problem.  Then again, because there
are some differences in the PostScript implementation (especially dealing
with paths), and some magic dictionaries have changed, and the fonts are
different, and so on, the older stuff may break, render oddly, or behave
somewhat weirdly.

Our stuff, ClientFocus(tm), now runs reasonably well in both environments,
with only an occasional check on which server we're using.  Most of our
porting problems had to to with path handling when rendering.  XNeWS is
actually closer to Adobe's implementation of PS, so fixing those problems
also cured some bugs we had in printing.

The applications that seem to break easiest are things that rely on
intrinsic dictionary structures and hacks; Class browsers, color editors,
terminal emulators, and such.

If you use the lite package, your stuff won't conform to OpenLook specs
(if that concerns you).  We haven't really used tNt, but it should open
an OpenLook look (sorry, I couldn't resist :={) ).

The summary of all this is, the quickest way to get your application up
is to simply try it under XNeWS; it may work immediately with no, or
only cosmetic, problems.  If you want OpenLook compliance and the multi-
inheritance model that tNt gives you, though, you have quite a bit more
work ahead of you.

One additional note:  XNeWS has gone a *long* way toward curing the server
growth problems of NeWS.  It even includes tools that aid in the location
of problem areas in your NeWS code memory management.  And the new
"cleanoutdict" function is a big aid there, too.

Good Luck.


Tom Dockery
Market Focus Technologies, Inc.